Sunsets are one of the most commonly photographed aspects of nature, yet photos rarely manage to capture their intense beauty. What was once a sky filled with rich, golden hues often ends up looking cooler, less vivid, and ultimately less interesting. In this Photoshop tutorial, we'll learn how to combine a simple Gradient Map adjustment layer with one of Photoshop's most widely-used blend modes to easily improve and enhance our sunset photos, restoring those warm reds, oranges and yellows we remember.
Step 1: Add A Gradient Map Adjustment Layer
With the image newly opened in Photoshop, we can see the photo not only in the main document area but also in the Layers panel. It's sitting on the Background layer, currently the only layer in the document:
The Layers panel.
As I mentioned at the beginning of the tutorial, we'll be using
Photoshop's Gradient Map image adjustment to enhance the colors in the
photo, but rather than applying the adjustment directly to the image
itself and making permanent changes to the original version, we'll work non-destructively by adding the Gradient Map as an adjustment layer. To do that, click on the New Fill or Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel: